Filmmaker James Allen Smith gets 'Floored' in Chicago's trading pits

Produced by Eight Forty-Eight

December 28, 2010

The Chicago Board of Trade and The Mercantile Exchange are more than just institutions where small fortunes are won and lost on a daily basis. They're spectacles, full of larger than life characters. Filmmaker James Allen Smith captured them up close in his film "Floored." The documentary is a rare look at life in the pits and how a young upstart – technology – is changing things. We talked to him earlier this year about how his background as a Web designer for a number of trading companies gave him access. One day, he was called down to the Merc by one of his clients. What he thought would be a routine visit turned out to be his first time on the floor. He says it was a shocker!